Policy Brief Template with Options Analysis
Four documents and three sheets that give every option a named party who pays for it and a count of how many have already objected.
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Option Trade-off Matrix
Four options, and who pays for each
| Option | Grid total | Claims graded strong | Parties made worse off | Already objected on the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Report no bill | 12 | 3 of 7 (43%) | 4 | 4 of 4 |
| B. Report the bill as drafted | 13 | 7 of 12 (58%) | 5 | 3 of 5 |
| C. Report it with section 4(a) struck | 14 | 2 of 9 (22%) | 3 | 0 of 3 |
| D. Threshold and a 24-month phase-in | 13 | 4 of 10 (40%) | 4 | 2 of 4 |
Option C tops the grid, rests on the weakest evidence, and is the only one whose cost-bearers have never filed anything. That last zero is 1,644 firms with no trade association between them.
The pack is four documents and three sheets and one rule. The sheets hold the analysis. An evidence register grades every claim strong, moderate or weak against its source. A position map records what each party has said in public and where. The trade-off matrix scores the options and prints two joins beside each score. The documents hold the output: the options analysis, the two-page brief, the evidence annex and the nine-slide version. The rule is that no option is listed without the party that pays for it.
Every sheet ships filled in for one illustrative brief to a committee weighing four options on a coverage bill. Scored across four criteria, option C tops the grid at 14 points. It also rests on 2 strong claims out of 9, the weakest of the four, and makes three parties worse off, none of whom has ever filed anything. Behind those three rows are 1,644 firms with no trade association between them.
An ordinary options table reports the score and stops. It has no column for who pays, so an option costing an unrepresented group reads exactly like consensus. Appraisal guidance is blunt about this: it is not adequate simply to report a comparison of the preferred option to the baseline. Open the pack in River and both joins are computed. Or download the sheets and run them against the parties a docket already names. The distributional column comes from costing the rule by affected group.
What's in the pack
Option Trade-off Matrix sheet
The criteria grid every brief already has, plus the four columns it cannot produce. Who each option makes worse off, how many of them have objected publicly, how many supporting claims are strong, and the cost-bearers named in full.
Stakeholder Position Map sheet
One row per party, carrying what they want, what they have actually said on the record, the document it is in, and who files on their behalf. That last column is where nobody belongs, and writing it is what makes the silence countable.
Evidence Register sheet
One row per claim rather than one per source, each graded strong, moderate or weak with the reason in a line. Gaps get rows too, since a claim everyone assumes and nobody sourced is a finding. It works like an evidence extraction table.
Options Analysis
The longlist, what came off it and why, then each shortlisted option with what happens, who pays, the evidence share and what it trades away. A longlist with no rejections recorded is a shortlist that was written first.
Policy Brief
Two pages, six parts, with an identical block shape on every option so they compare by eye. The recommendation section is allowed to say that the evidence does not yet support picking, and to name the two things that would settle it.
Evidence Annex
The register written out and grouped, with the grading reasoning attached, so a reader who disbelieves a sentence can check it in under a minute. It ends with what the register does not contain.
Briefing Deck
Nine slides for the version delivered out loud, built so it survives being forwarded without its narrator. The cost-bearer sits on the same slide as the option, because a deck that separates them is a deck where the later slide gets skipped.
No option is listed without the party that pays for it
The standing space rule every prompt reads first. It applies to the no-action option too, which is the one that usually ships with an empty cost column and is also the one a committee gets by default when it cannot agree.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or download it
Open the pack in River and the agent builds the register and the position map with you, or download the three CSV sheets and four Word documents instantly, filled in with the worked example.
- 2
Generate a longlist, then cut it in the open
Six to eight options including the reference case, one more ambitious than anything under discussion and one that costs less. Record every rejection with its reason.
- 3
Name a loser for every option
A party specific enough that somebody could write to them, not a sector. Straw men cannot survive this field. Where an option genuinely costs nobody, ask who is doing the thing that stops happening.
- 4
Run both joins before you recommend anything
Look every cost-bearer up in the position map, count the strong claims behind each option, and print all three numbers together. Where they disagree, that is the most useful sentence in the brief.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Download the whole pack as CSV sheets and Word documents with no signup and no credit card. Edit with AI is a separate, optional path that has the agent build the register and the position map with you. The template library holds the rest of the packs.
What format are the downloaded files?
CSV for the three sheets and Word documents for the options analysis, the brief, the annex and the deck outline, in one zip. They open in Excel, Numbers, Sheets, Word, Pages and Google Docs with nothing to convert. Inside River the same content opens as live Docs and Sheets.
How is this different from the usual policy brief template?
The usual one gives you headings. This one adds a mandatory field: every option names the party who is worse off under it. That single field removes straw men, because a straw man has no losers, and it makes the options section something a decision-maker can use instead of skip.
What does the on-the-record count actually tell me?
How much of the objection to an option is visible, and nothing else. Heavy recorded opposition does not make an option wrong. Zero recorded opposition usually means the losers have no organisation that files, which is why the option feels consensual until the day it lands.
Should the no-action option really get the same treatment?
Yes, and it is the one most often left blank. UK appraisal guidance requires that business as usual is always carried into the comparison as the benchmark, and notes it does not mean nothing happens. It is also what a committee gets by default when it cannot agree.
Can I still make a recommendation?
Yes. What the pack blocks is a recommendation the options section was built to make inevitable. The challenge prompt checks whether the recommended option is the one with the weakest evidence or the quietest losers. Answering a government consultation is different work: that response maps coverage question by question rather than recommending among your own options.
Does it work outside government policy?
The structure holds anywhere someone picks between options with different losers: a board, a funder, a standards committee, a hospital trust. Where the decision starts from a rule or a bill instead, the filing analysis and the bill redline feed this pack, as does a comparison with a source in every cell.
Find out who pays for the option you were going to recommend
Send the decision, who makes it, and whatever evidence you have collected. The options come back with a named loser on each one.
Edit with AI